Nearly two months after sending NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, the probe is now in its prime development stage.
The probe is part of the Europa Clipper mission, which is targeted to launch toward Jupiter's moon Europa in October 2024.
After nearly six years and traveling more than 2.9 billion kilometers (1.8 billion miles), it will reach Jupiter's orbit in 2030.
Europa is the fourth largest moon (satellite) of Jupiter, the fifth planet in our solar system. Its equatorial diameter is about 3,100 kilometers (1,940 mi).
Europa is about 90 percent the size of Earth's moon. Europa's surface is made of water ice and therefore reflects 5.5 times as much sunlight as our Moon.
Europa orbits Jupiter at about 6,71,000 km from its planet Jupiter. Europa orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days.
Light from the Sun takes about 45 minutes to reach Europa. Because of the distance, the sunlight is about 25 times less on Jupiter and Europa than on Earth.
Like our Earth, Europa may have an iron core, a rocky mantle and an ocean of salt water.Europa's ocean may contain more than twice as much water as Earth's oceans.
'Scientists believe that Europa's ocean lies under a shell of ice 15 to 25 kilometers thick, and has an estimated depth of 60 to 150 kilometers.
To study Europa, NASA is preparing the 'Europa Clipper Mission'. It will collect such data and pictures, so that this icy moon of Jupiter can be studied.
Under this mission, it will be tried to know whether there can be favorable conditions for life on Europa.
Understanding the potential for life on Europa will also help scientists understand how life on Earth evolved.
So far, many of the instruments used for the Europa Clipper mission have been completed and installed on the spacecraft.
The Clipper probe is 10 feet long and 5 feet wide and will be equipped with a suite of 9 science instruments. once the solar panels are installed, the spacecraft will become as large as a basketball court.
During the entire course of its mission, the spacecraft will conduct a total of 50 flybys to collect data on Europa's atmosphere, surface and interior.
Using this data, scientists will determine the depth of Europa's ocean as well as its salinity, the thickness of the outer icy layer.